Saturday, October 3, 2009
Nutrition is a life-sustaining treatment and the role of nutrition in the treatment of HIV is critical. HIV affects each person differently. The key to good nutrition is to have a daily nutritional plan that meets your needs. Ask to speak to the dietitian at your clinic and develop a meal plan to fit your needs. If there is none, encourage your medical provider to hire one and in the meantime ask to be referred to a dietitian knowledgeable in HIV care. You must be the one to insist on making nutrition a priority.
The Importance of Nutrition
Nutrition means your intake: the amount and quality of foods you eat, the liquids you drink, and the dietary supplements you take. Intake can be measured by the number of servings you have of each food group, and by the calories and nutrients, like carbohydrate, protein, and fat, vitamins and minerals, as well as other important substances found in your food and drink.
Nutrition also means how your foods, liquids, and supplements get digested into the nutrients that then move from your digestive system into your bloodstream to be carried to different parts of your body and used in metabolism, the functions and processes, which support life.
Think of nutrition as links in a chain. The first link is what you choose to eat and drink. Second is how well it can be digested. Third is how effectively your body can utilize these nutrients. You need all three links. The one that you have most control over is intake. If any link in the chain is broken, malnutrition can result. Poor food intake hurts the first link, vomiting and diarrhea hurt the second, and fevers, abnormal metabolism, and infections hurt the third. Malnutrition can be measured and identified by body cell (muscle) and weight loss, and as decrease of blood protein called albumin, and other markers in the blood like hematocrit, hemoglobin, and cholesterol.
HIV infects the cells that line the gastrointestinal tract and can make eating, digestion, absorption, and elimination painful, difficult, and less effective. When severe, malnutrition can cause illness and death, even with higher CD-4 cell levels. Weight loss and lower albumin levels increase the risk of hospitalization and length of stay. It has been established that death follows when there has been a decline to 66% of ideal body weight and a decline to 54% of usual body cell mass.
What you eat makes a very real difference in how you feel and how well you do medically. People with HIV can have problems that directly hurt their nutritional health. Your nutritional health directly affects your immune system.
